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To the Wor/bipfull my much honour-
ed Friend Richard Hampden
SeHampden, Elquire and the Lady
Lætitia bis Wife, Grace and Teate
be multiplied edr ylimat toy of
9 no li ylasm sidon flom

SIRT 0975 di alil bofold a oj
Our Natties stand here in the
front of this Treatife, on
First, that

a double account that

(the custom of Writer's ha ving given me fuck arbad vantage) I may tell the pre

fent and futute Ages, how much love and honour your Piety, Sobriety, Integrity and Moderation, in an Age when luch Vertues grow mto contempt, or into lifeless Images and Names: And how much I am my felf your debter, A }

for

9

for the manifold expreffions of your love;
and that in an Age when Love directed by
the fuperiour faculties is out of fashion;
and towards fuch as I, is grown a crime.
Sincerity and Love are things that fhall be
honourable, when Hypocrifie and Malice have
done their wort: But they are most con-
fpicuous and refulgent in times of rarity
and when the fhame of their concraries fet
them off brodo hubiri bo
Secondly, To fignifie my Love and
Gratitude by the beft return which I can
make, which is, by tendering to you and
to your family, the fureft Directions, for the
moft noble manly life on earth, in order
to a bleffed life in Heaven. Though you
are not yer pale
need of help fo great a work doth call,
for skilfull counfel, and ftudious learning,
and induftrious, and unwearied practice.
And your hopeful children may be therea
dier to learn this excellent Life from thefe
Directions, for the love of your prefixed
Names. And how happy will they be
if they converse with God, when others
are wallowing in the filth of fenfuality!
When the dead-hearted-finner thinketh not

have proceeded well, 1

of

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of anorher world, with the wisdom of a foreseeing man, till he is going out of this, fecurus quo pes ferat, atque ex tempore vivit, ut Perf.& quibus in folo vivendi caufa palato eft, ut furo. When fuch fenfual fouls muft be dragg'd out of their pampered corrup tible flesh, to divine revenge, and go with the beginnings of endless horrour, to the world where they might have found everlasting rest, what joy will then be the portion of mortified and patient Believers, whofe Treasures, and Hearts, and Converfations in Heaven, are now the foretaste of their poffeffion, as the Spirit of Chrift which caufeth this, is the feal of God, and the pledge and earnest of their inheritance. If a Hefh-pleafing life in a dark, diftracted, bruitifh world, were better than a life with God and Angels, methinks yet they that know they cannot have what they would, fhould make fure of what they may have: And they that cannot keep what they love, fhould learn to love what they may keep Wonderfull ftupidity! That they who fee, that carrying dead bodies to the grave, is as common a work, as the Midwifes takeing children into the world, and that this

44

life

life is but the road to another, and that all men are pofting on to their journeys end, should think no more confiderately whither so many thoufand fouls do go, that daily fhoot the gulf of death and return no more to the world which once they called their home! That men will have no house or home, but the fhip which carryeth them so swiftly to eternity!, and spend their time in furnishing a dwelling on such a tempeftuous Sea, where winds and tide are hafting them to the fhore! and even to the end are contriving to live where they are daily dying! and care for no habitation but on horse back! That almost all men horse-back! die much wifer than they lived; and yet the certain foreknowledge of death will not ferve to make them more feasonably and more fafely wife! Wonderful! that it fhould be poffible for a man awake, to believe that he muft, fhortly be gone from earth, and enter into an unchangeable enda lefs life, and yet not bend the thoughts of his foul, and the labours of his life, to fe cure his true and durable felicity! But Adam bath given fm the antecedency to grace, and madness the priority to misdom,

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